Minnesota students just say no to abstinence.After taking an abstinence-only sex education Abstinence-only sex education is a form of sex education that emphasizes abstinence from sex to the exclusion of all other types of sexual and reproductive health education, particularly regarding birth control and safe sex. course, 12% of students in three Minnesota junior high schools said that they were sexually active--twice the proportion who gave this response before taking the course. (1) A similar pattern is apparent statewide. Furthermore, despite the state's policy to teach that abstaining from intercourse is the only way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease sexually transmitted disease (STD) or venereal disease, term for infections acquired mainly through sexual contact. Five diseases were traditionally known as venereal diseases: gonorrhea, syphilis, and the less common granuloma inguinale, , 77% of parents surveyed said that they want their children to be taught about both abstinence abstinence: see fasting; temperance movements. and contraception. While supporters of abstinence only education fault the program for teaching that young people should refrain from having intercourse only until adulthood, rather than until marriage, opponents label such thinking "naive." The director of a group that advocates comprehensive sex education comments that "just telling kids to abstain doesn't meet their needs." (1.) Pierre RE, Abstinence lessons going unheeded, five-year study finds, Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2004, p. A2. FYI "For your information." See digispeak. FYI - For Your Information is compiled and written by Dore Hollander, executive editor of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health Within the framework of WHO's definition of health[1] as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health, or sexual health/hygiene . |
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